Why Can’t You Afford a Home?

This book offers an important yet often overlooked perspective on Hong Kong’s housing crisis. I encourage everyone to read this concise and impactful work. Perhaps the next time someone asks you why you can’t afford a home, you’ll be able to provide a more nuanced response: it’s not just about high land prices or urban efficiency. It’s also about policies that direct financial capital towards meaningful and sustainable production and ensure that housing is for living, not speculation.

──Ng Mee-kam, Programme Director of Urban Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The housing crisis has reached a point where governments can no longer ignore public anger over housing shortages and generational inequality. Past housing policies have made societies more insecure, inefficient, and inequitable. At this juncture, can we break free from the obsession with home ownership? It’s time to consider reimagining the housing market entirely.

Through the critical questions raised by the author, this book allows us to rethink the past policies and systems that have brought us here. I sincerely recommend this book to more readers, hoping it inspires greater participation in the future reform of housing policies!

──Chiang Yinghui, Assistant Professor, Department of Land Economics, National Chengchi University, Taiwan

The author explains in detail that the real reason why people can’t afford homes isn’t due to the “poverty” that creates personal tragedies, nor is it an unchangeable fate. Instead, it stems from the systemic disorder of late capitalist economies. It’s the endless cycle of mortgages driving the relentless rise in property prices. It’s the societal mainstream that constructs the illusion of home ownership as the key to a good life, perpetuating a bubble-like lie.

This book is the sharp needle that bursts the bubble.

──Micah, Co-founder of The Kongner and Happy Kongner

To truly explain why land issues are considered “deep-seated problems,” we need more than a geographical understanding of where suitable land is in Hong Kong. We also need, as this book demonstrates, a global-to-local political-economic perspective. To put it bluntly, the belief that increasing land supply alone can solve the housing problem is nothing more than shallow political rhetoric designed to delay action indefinitely—a belief that only schoolchildren taught “Hong Kong has little land and too many people” would accept.

This book provides a perspective that hits the mark, offering insights into local realities. Let’s see if this thoughtfully translated edition can spark a new wave of thinking about housing issues.

──Chan Kim Ching, Research at the Liber Research Community

Rising property prices are not unique to Hong Kong; similar trends are seen in other major global cities. This book succinctly analyses the shared driving forces behind these trends—namely, the financialisation of housing that began in the 1970s—and attempts to propose solutions. This is a must-read for anyone concerned about housing and land issues.

──Tsang Chung-kin, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Hong Kong Shue Yan University

Finally, the Chinese-speaking world has a clear and accessible book on the issue of house prices!

Ryan-Collins explains the historical reasons behind high property prices through the lens of land price and economic development. He examines how the “freedom” brought by financial liberalisation has instead enslaved people to mortgages and made them victims of real estate bubbles. The book dismantles the myth often touted by governments that “real estate is the engine of economic growth,” highlighting how the “housing-finance feedback cycle” exploits the public.

──SuperY, Taiwanese Book Review YouTuber

In these turbulent times, the message of this book rings like a wake-up call. I’m delighted to see the publication of its Chinese edition. Over the past decade, Taiwan’s housing movements have advocated for housing rights and social equality, and their policy perspectives closely align with those of the author. However, progress has been limited by the lobbying of developers and the narrow-mindedness of bureaucrats.

With the insights from this book, we can further affirm the value of these movements. I also hope this book’s exploration of the history and reality of home ownership will help society better understand the core contradictions of capitalism and move towards a more equitable future.

──Huang Li-ling, Associate Professor, Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, National Taiwan University, Taiwan

The author presents a novel analysis of the “housing-finance feedback cycle,” dissecting the roles of banks and land in the economy to explain a problem that traditional economic theories and policies fail to address. Using historical experiences and statistical data from Western societies, the author provides a clear and accessible narrative on the housing crisis and the steps that led to today’s challenges.

When reading this book, comparing its insights to local circumstances could help formulate effective, context-specific solutions. With this, the crisis may yet be resolved.

──Tang Wing-shing, President of the Hong Kong Critical Geography Society, Emeritus Professor of Geography, Hong Kong Baptist University, and Columnist for Ming Pao’s “Thought Currents”: